


I'd rather see her lovely step

by melmillo



Category: Kuroshitsuji (2014)
Genre: Dancing, F/F, Loyalty, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-17
Updated: 2015-12-17
Packaged: 2018-05-07 06:27:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5446553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melmillo/pseuds/melmillo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lin and Shiori, post-movie, maneuvering closer and together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'd rather see her lovely step

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Piscaria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Piscaria/gifts).



Following the conclusion of the Devil’s Curse incidents, Lin saw almost nothing of Lady Shiori for the next week.

The moment that night when she'd managed to sit up on the chaise and realized that Mr. Sebastian was long gone, off to Lady Shiori’s side, which might be anywhere in the city or outside of it--that had been one of the lowest moments of her life. Her body had spent its energy and adrenaline, but her mind was still running in anxious circles, urging her up. _You know there’s something wrong--she’s still in danger out there--_

She’d had her feet set under her, ready to stand, when a hand came down on her shoulder and Mr. Tanaka had pressed a steaming cup into her grip.

"Never fear," he’d said. His face had borne the same gentle look as always, but there’d been a note of iron in his tone that she’d known not to go against.

She’d given way to the exhaustion and stayed sitting, and sipped at the tea--lavender, just warm enough enough to make her tongue curl a little under the heat--until the voice in her mind that said _go, go, go, run through the city until you find her_ had worn itself down to a whisper. Then she'd taken another cup and gone upstairs to lie down on her little bed in her room under the eaves, sure that she wouldn’t sleep until she knew that Lady Shiori was back and safe, or--otherwise.

 _Be safe,_ she’d thought, with all of herself. _Be safe._

When she _had_ woken up it had been with a start, appalled that she’d slept so long, that she’d slept at all, and she’d half-leapt out of bed when she’d seen that the teacup had gone from her bedside table, replaced with a covered tray and a note.

 _Eat your meal and rest as much as necessary,_ the note had said. _You are not to take up any duties until you have fully recovered._

There had been no signature, but Lin knew the cramped lines of Lady Shiori’s handwriting well enough.

She had stared at the note for a long time. Whatever had happened to Lady Shiori since Lin had last seen her, whatever she'd been through, she had at some point remembered Lin. She had spared a moment to think of Lin’s care. She had called Lin 'precious'.

Yet after that note, there’d been nothing. Lin had eaten her meal--a magnificent omelet and the good white bread with herb butter, plated elegantly on the plain servants’ crockery--and sponged the blood from the bib of her dress, and gone back to her work that very morning; she knew her bruises and aches would do better if she were up and about than if she’d stayed in bed all day. And every day since she’d expected--

No, not _expected_ ; that implied she had the right to assume things from her mistress. But she was prepared for Lady Shiori to summon her and say…any number of things. The last time they’d seen each other in close quarters, Lin had pulled off a mask she’d worn for ten years and let it shatter, and Lady Shiori had shown Lin a face full of astonishment and unguarded emotion. There was no easy way to return to their old habits and roles without acknowledging what had happened--and at the same time Lin had no way to open the issue herself, though she couldn’t stop herself from half-forming possible openings. If they’d been been only the slightest bit closer before all this, if they had ever had an exchange that went beyond the limits of mistress and useless maid--

But she’d passed up that chance years ago when she’d decided to keep herself hidden; now all she could do was wait for Lady Shiori’s notice and imagine what her question would be. _Why did you keep yourself hidden? What exactly did you think you were doing?_

As there was no other option, Lin did as she’d always done. She carried trays, wobbling slightly, from the kitchen to Lady Shiori’s bedroom or study, where Mr. Sebastian took them from her and disappeared behind the closed doors. She made attempts at sweeping, at cleaning the windows, at putting on the kettle to boil. She fetched the mail and the respectable newspapers, whose neatly printed headlines announced Lady Hanae’s death after a long illness and her memorial in the city, which had been thronged with society friends and business colleagues. She opened and unwrapped deliveries of groceries and boxes, packed with crumpled day-old editions of the cheaper papers that screamed THE TRUTH OF THE DEVIL'S CURSE!! and NOBLE'S MYSTERIOUS DEATH LINKED TO DRUG RING?! in blue and white and yellow.

Just after dawn on the seventh day Lin carried out the morning meal for the mansion’s hang-about marmalade cat, and when she straightened she saw that to the east, on the hill past the low wall of the garden, were three gravestones--three, where there had only been two the day before--and a small thin figure in black.

At that distance it was too far to tell what expression Lady Shiori wore. She had no one with her and made no movement. She simply stood and stared at the markers as the sun crawled up past the far treetops and burnt off the last remnants of the morning fog.

Lin watched for so long that the cat finished its breakfast and prowled along the balustrade until it was close enough to butt against her fingertips, then insinuated itself onto her shoulder and down into the crook of her arm.

Lin spent a minute unhooking the cat's claws from her sleeve, and then another shifting it so its rear legs didn't poke her in the stomach, and when she looked up again Lady Shiori was making her way back to the house, and it was too late for Lin to duck back inside and pretend that she hadn’t spent the past however many minutes intruding--if only by staring--on what Lady Shiori had clearly wanted to be a private moment.

As she came closer her features resolved into greater sharpness: tired-eyed; drawn thin; even paler than usual. There was a jaggedness about the usually-soft lines of her face, as though she couldn’t quite get the parts of her expression to line up properly. Lin had never, in all her years of watching Lady Shiori, seen her look such a way--like she'd taken a deep wound that still bleed, and was suffering from a grief more bitter than a relative’s passing.

Another piece of the events of that night a week ago slotted into place in her mind, and her heart squeezed. She’d likely never have every piece of the puzzle, but she had enough to make a guess at the generalities, and what Lady Hanae’s role in them had been. A thin curl of guilt began to form in her stomach.

As Lady Shiori reached the veranda their eyes met for a moment; all the apologies that Lin had half-thought through drained away, and she could do nothing but stare, half-ashamed and half miserable. She saw Lady Shiori’s mouth part just slightly, and close again. Then her uncovered eye flicked down to the cat, enthusiastically shedding all over Lin’s sleeves.

"Don’t you start indulging those things," she said. "I won’t have _two_ silly cat fanciers as servants."

With that, she passed by and disappeared into the house.

 _Oh,_ Lin thought a moment after she’d left, and blinked in surprise. _Oh, she doesn’t know what to say either._

The cat yowled, and batted at her collar.

She went back to her work with guilt still coiling inside, her but the anxiety of waiting lessened. The days passed, and she counted the silver three times and nearly broke one of the Sèvres vases when she tried to dust it and skimmed the newspapers that told her that the stock of Funtom Co., which had dipped at the news of Lady Hanae’s death, steadied and began to rise as Lord Kiyoharu took up his aunt’s responsibilities in addition to his own.

When Lin caught glimpses of her mistress now it was always in motion, as as Lady Shiori left the house or returned, or moved from room to room, or paced up and down, and never were they close enough to exchange words--but every time Lady Shiori looked at Lin her gaze lingered for a moment, and her uncovered eye was piercing and clear.

* * *

(Lin wore the glasses before she needed them.

At the age of seven her training had still had the air of a game. _Strike here--or here--or here,_ her mother would say, pointing to dozens of pressure points and joints on herself, _and you’ll bring down a target. Now, how many of those points can you remember?_ Lin turned somersaults and flips until she was light-headed, and tiptoed from one end of the mansion to the other without being seen by any servants, and counted how many black or brown or white birds stood on the west garden wall while she stood at the east wall hundreds of feet away. In early mornings and late evenings her mother chased her across the mansion’s grounds and through the clipped hedges, flicking pebbles at her until Lin could dodge them all and never take a single scratch or bruise. Often, though, when Lin had finished, her mother would lead her through the house and let her peek through a door or window and see Lord Arihito at his desk, bent over his work, or Lady Erika taking tea in the garden. Once she had even been allowed into the young Lady Shiori's room, had stood on tiptoe and looked down into the crib that held a small bundle with dark hair and curious eyes.

"They will be your charges," her mother would tell her. "Everything you learn now, you will use in service to them." 

The glasses, though, had come out of nowhere, and her mother presented them to her as thought they were something far more significant than ordinary glasses with black frames. And--Lin had held them up in front of her eyes, baffled--frames with clear plastic lenses at that.

"You’ll likely need real ones soon enough," her mother had said. "But even if your eyes stay good all your life, you should always wear these."

"Why?" Lin had asked, holding them up by the earpieces with her fingertips.

Her mother had tapped a finger against the glasses on her own face. "If I say that it's a tradition of our family...?" She’d smiled as Lin had started to frown a little; tradition was _an_ answer, and one that she heard often enough, but it wasn't a _good_ answer. "Think of them," her mother went on, "as a reminder to yourself, and a sign to everyone else."

Which wasn’t really answer either, but it was clearly all she was going to get at that moment. She’d kept the case by her bed and put the glasses on every morning, wiggling her nose at the odd weight, until eventually that weight became so normal that its absence felt stranger than its presence. They changed her face somehow, she realized, peering around the rims at her reflection in mirrors and polished windowpanes. Not a disguise, exactly, but a distraction, something for peoples' eyes to catch on before looked any further.

By the age of fourteen Lin’s glasses had real lenses that cut her long-sighted vision to a gentle blur, her hands had grown enough to properly wrap around the grip of a gun, and her mother, and her lord, and her lady had been murdered.

"Stay here," her mother had said that awful night, rousing Lin out of sleep and pushing her underneath the bed, and Lin had, and watched while her mother had crept out the door. She'd stayed curled under the slats, breathing in cold air and the scent of old wood, and listened to the sound of shouts and footsteps grow louder, and closer, and then fade away. And finally, when there'd been no sound for ages but her own breath in her ears, she’d crept out of the room and down the stairs and found her mother's body piled in a heap with the corpses of the other Genpou servants.

Of course she'd cried for her mother in those first weeks afterwards--cried so often and so hard that her eyes stayed red and raw for days. But that sadness, heavy as it was, was something she could learn to bear. Before her mother's body had been taken away, Lin had seen her hands, scraped and bruised--marks that came not from being struck but from striking. Her mother had died trying to fulfill her duty, defending her lord and lady, and _their_ deaths that weighed so strongly Lin thought she’d be dragged down into grief and never rise again. She had neglected her charge to protect them. She should have ignored her mother that night and followed after her--she might only have been a slight young girl, but she still had her little portion of training. If she’d gone with her mother; if she had been able to stop that bullet from hitting Lady Erika, or to delay them from taking Lady Shiori for even a moment--

It was Lady Shiori’s return as Lord Kiyoharu that had given her a stepping-stone to climb out of her sorrow--a chance for her to make amends for her previous failure. In those early days Lin had told Lady Shiori the whole truth about herself a thousand times. In that moment it would have been simple and proper to present herself to her and say _My family has protected yours for many years, so please keep me close that I might serve you as best I can._

But every time she planned to do so, she ended up sitting in her room instead, turning over thoughts of herself and her mother, and the reasons for her glasses. Every day her mother had served in the Genpou mansion she had been alert and armed, with guns holstered under her skirt and stilettos up her sleeves and a length of strong wire looping the tail of her braid, and yet in all the time she’d had been alive no visitor to the Genpou mansion had ever guessed that she was anything other than an ordinary maid, a pretty woman with a quiet manner and poor eyesight. Though she'd failed at her duty in the end, it hadn't been for lack of concealment. And though Lady Shiori had an exceptional servant in Mr. Sebastian, if she meant to follow in the footsteps of her family, she would need more than one sort of defense to shield her.

So Lin had kept her glasses on and her mouth closed, and let her own family's tradition be her guide.)

* * *

The letter arrived a month later with the rest of the morning mail.

Lin had managed to carry the salver piled with letters without tripping all the way from the mansion's entrance without incident to the small study, where Lady Shiori and Mr. Sebastian were examining several boxes of files that had arrived the day before, then spoiled it by catching her toe on the study door's draft-guard. The letters skidded over the salver’s edge and towards the floor as she tumbled to her knees.

Mr. Sebastian plucked one letter from the air--creamy paper sealed with blue wax--and let the others flutter to the floor like scattered feathers. Lin ducked her head before his exasperated expression could fall on her, and began gathering the fallen envelopes.

"Lady Chizuko sends her condolences once more on the death of your aunt," he said, "and inquires after your health, and asks if you will be attending her gala at the end of the week."

Lady Shiori didn't look up from her papers. "Why does she think I would?"

"Because, young master, if you recall, you already gave your acceptance to her initial invitation two months ago."

"Withdraw it, then," Lady Shiori said. She tapped the pile of papers against the desk with a sharp thump. "I don't have the time to waste an evening standing around and making small talk with idiots."

"To absent yourself from all public appearances gives the impression that something is amiss." Mr. Sebastian paused long enough for Lady Shiori to open her mouth to reply, then continued, "Or that the tasks of your daily life are too much for you, leaving you with no energy for your social responsibilities."

Lady Shiori's mouth snapped shut; her expression turned venomous. Mr. Sebastian looked serenely amused. After a moment, she said, "My reputation is never enhanced when I do bother to attend these things." "I spend half the time listening to men drone on about the businesses they’re too stupid to own, and the other half trying to avoid persistent young ladies."

"Mankind's lack of intelligence is not a matter I can address." Mr. Sebastian’s hands were neatly refolding the note and slipping it back into its envelope. "But if you wish to avoid the addresses of young ladies, you might escort a companion."

The last fallen envelope had tumbled under one of the chairs in front of the desk; Lin bent lower to grab it and had just set her fingers on it when Lady Shiori said, "Then I’ll take Lin with me."

For a few seconds Lin's mind froze, and she was absolutely certain she could not have heard what her ears thought they had just heard, and then she raised her eyes to find them both staring at her, Mr. Sebastian with a sharp line between his brows and Lady Shiori with her face smooth as glass.

"Ah--" she heard herself say. The envelope bent a little under her fingers. She looked to Lady Shiori’s face, and then Mr. Sebastian’s, and then her mistress’s again.

"I will do," she said, "whatever is required of me."

The line between Mr. Sebastian’s eyes deepened, then disappeared. "That may be an acceptable solution," he said, "as long as you can manage a reasonable showing of good deportment, pleasant conversation--"

It couldn’t be as bad as that nightclub, surely. At an elegant party everyone would be on their best manners, and while it might not be less dangerous, when it came to the number of people, it would be less raucous, less wild, less of a crush--

"--and dancing."

\--and at that, Lin felt her expression slide uncontrollably into dismay, and had the unnerving experience of seeing Lady Shiori with a look on her face that exactly matched Lin’s own.

* * *

Lin was almost certain Lady Shiori had learned how to dance. That is, there'd been dancing _lessons_ \--she remembered a full week of afternoons four or so years back when she'd tiptoed by the closed door of the blue room and heard Mr. Sebastian counting out steps in waltz time over and over, punctuated occasionally by loud, exasperated interjections from Lady Shiori. That had stopped all at once one day, which Lin had taken to mean that Lady Shiori had mastered it at last.

Now, standing in the blue room herself with Mr. Sebastian and a scowling Lady Shiori, she realized it was much more likely that Lady Shiori had reached her limit of patience ended the lessons prematurely.

"Half the people at these parties don’t dance," Lady Shiori said, arms crossed. "It’s never been a problem that I haven’t."

"You have never attended one with an escort before." Mr. Sebastian’s expression was catlike in its satisfaction. "To play the wallflower at your age when you are accompanied by a partner would be most unbecoming for you and for your family’s name."

Lady Shiori’s scowl grew more fearsome, and for a very long moment she said nothing. But at last she unfolded her arms and let Mr. Sebastian directed them into the positions of leader and follower, Lin’s right hand folded into Shiori's palm while her left rested on Shiori's shoulder, a dainty point of bone under linen and skin.

"A simple waltz with the box step," Mr. Sebastian said. "Anything more complex would be too much for you at this point."

He listed the steps, then began to count the beats. Lady Shiori stepped forward, Lin stepped back not quite far enough, and Lady Shiori's foot knocked against hers as it landed.

Mr. Sebastian looked on impassively. "Again."

It ought to have been easy enough--simple sets of steps backward and forward, a turn here and there--but somehow between the two of them they managed to bang elbows and trip over each other's feet in ways that shouldn't have been possible. Lin felt the muscles in Lady Shiori’s shoulder grow stiffer and stiffer as the hour dragged past. Lin was sent out for a single twirl and turned in the wrong direction; as she stepped back the heel of her boot came down squarely on Lady Shiori's foot.

After what felt like the entire afternoon but had probably only been an hour, Mr. Sebastian called for a halt. "This will take more work than I had thought." He almost looked surprised. "I was unaware it was possible to be--" "Thank you," Lady Shiori said, very crisply, "for your observation. Lin, you may go, and be here again tomorrow at the same time." So Lin left the two of them casting icy looks at each other, and went back to attempting to dust the heavy curtains in the far gallery without bringing them down on her head. That night in her room she lightly paced through the steps, backwards and forwards, over and over--yes, easy enough to do on your own, but how did you manage it with two people?

Perhaps Mr. Sebastian would, in his mysterious way, contrive to make sure that there was no dancing at this party at all. The musicians all becoming ill? The women all snapping off the heels of one of their shoes? At this point, any of those seemed more likely than their succeeding at this venture.

* * *

The next day when Lin peeped around the doorframe into the blue room, she found Lady Shiori sitting alone with tea set out at the table near her elbow. When she caught sight of Lin, she beckoned her in with a quick jerk of her head. "Close the door behind you."

Lin tugged it shut, and ventured to ask, "Is Mr. Sebastian not--"

"I don't care to practice with him here," Lady Shiori said, setting her teacup in its saucer with a decisive clink. "He's too irritating."

Lin smoothed the line of her skirt and said, "He's very capable."

"That's why he's irritating." Lady Shiori stood, and extended a hand. "Come here."

If anything, they were worse today; Mr. Sebastian had at least been able to see the disasters before they happened and call for a halt before they got too tangled up, but now they stumbled on far past where they ought to have stopped. They banged elbows and, at one point, heads. Lady Shiori herself seemed twice as tense as she’d been the day before, from head to toe like a wire pulled taut. Every time Lin's hand came back to rest on her shoulder she tightened up further, and Lin startled, and they lost the count and the order of the steps again.

Eventually, on what might have been the thirtieth or fortieth attempt--Lin had long since lost track--the toe of her boot caught Lady Shiori's ankle. She stepped badly on her other foot and stumbled; her hip bumped the side table, clinking all the china together and sending a handful of petit-fours tumbling off the edge of their dish and onto the deep blue carpet.

Even without listening for it she heard Lady Shiori’s sigh. She tugged her hands loose, stilled her feet and bowed her head. The silence stretched and grew. Anything Lin wanted to say, even the habitual apology, stuck on her tongue.

"Lin," Lady Shiori said at last. When Lin managed to lift her head, Lady Shiori’s expression was--not angry, but that same sharp and thoughtful one she have given Lin in a hundred split-seconds over the past weeks. Her eyes were fixed on Lin's glasses. "Is it all a facade?"

"It--?"

"This." The sweep of her nod took in the jarred porcelain, the scattered petit-fours flaking pink and green icing onto the table, and Lin herself.

"No," Lin said, then dared a little more. "That is, not exactly--"

The little gilt clock on the desk chimed the hour. She waited, but Lady Shiori only looked at her thoughtfully for another long moment, then nodded. "We’re finished for now," she said. 

* * *

(What Lin had wanted to say, if she’d had the words and the time, was this:

She had not been awkward or senseless as a child; those were not the traits of a child who would become a bodyguard for the Genpou family. From the moment she'd been up on her feet, her mother had taught how her body could move in and through whatever space it was given, and all the ways it could push and twist and strike against another body until that other was subdued. If pressed she could balance on one foot for an hour or turn backflips along a narrow beam. Her glasses reduced the sharpness of her vision, but not enough to hamper every single one of her movements--if that had been the case she would be ten times clumsier than she was now. Yet she didn't fake her stumbles or her inability to sweep the hall without tripping over the broomstick or to heat a pot of water without letting it boil away.

What hindered her was her own mind.

To be a bodyguard meant that a corner of her brain was forever occupied, as though she were always listening with one ear to faint music in the next room over, alert for the slightest missed note or skip in the beat that could signal something was wrong. Some part of her was always thinking, _How would I protect Lady Shiori if she were to be attacked right now? What’s here that I can use to attack or defend?_ So when she held a tea tray, her mind told her that she carried not one set of things but two: a silver tray with a steaming teapot, a cup, and a saucer; four weapons waiting for the twitch of her fingers to put them to use. _If an enemy strikes now, fling the teapot first to scald their eyes and hands--then charge to bash them with the tray--then pull your guns if you can, or smash the saucer and put the sharp edge to work--_ Chopping knives and egg whisks and push-mops and tins of polish, each table and chair and flower vase and windowpane--their everyday purposes and defensive potential overlapped in her brain until her thoughts collided and her hands and feet fumbled, and she'd move in exactly the wrong way at the wrong time, or find that she'd whisked the egg whites into oblivion and used the furniture polish on the floor.

If her mother had lived longer to teach her, Lin might have learned how to properly balance the guise of a maid with the purpose of a guard. As it was, she had a body that had been taught to fight since she could walk, and all the history her own mother had told her of the threats her family had faced, stories that when back to when the Genpou family had lived in the West and borne another name. Attacks that came in the night and in daytime, from strangers and from people who were thought to be friends. Anyone must be considered an enemy until you were absolutely sure they were not a danger, and the number of people she could judge as safe was distressingly small. Odd as he was, she knew Mr. Tanaka was safe. Mr. Sebastian--well, 'safe' wasn't a word that anyone in their right mind would apply to Mr. Sebastian, but something in the deepest part of Lin’s mind told her that harming Lady Shiori wasn’t his intent.

And Lady Hanae, she had thought, was safe. That had jabbed at Lin like a knife every time she’d thought of it over the past month. Lady Hanae had been a serpent under the leaves for years and Lin had never caught a hint of it, never even imagined--

For all her attempted vigilance, she’d failed again. And now that Lady Shiori had made an opening attempt at laying the ground for them to speak to each other, Lin could not keep her failure bottled up any longer.)

* * *

On the third day, the door of the blue room safely shut behind her, Lin took a breath to steel herself, and spoke before her mistress could.

"Lady Shiori," she said, "I should ask your forgiveness."

"For what?" Lady Shiori’s voice was brusque, but she seemed almost amused. "You haven’t stepped on my foot yet today."

"Not for this." Lin swallowed, painfully, and continued. "For Lady Hanae."

That knocked any hint of light-heartedness off Lady Shiori’s face. "Lady Hanae," she said flatly, and then, "What do you know?"

"I know that her death and…whatever she did before that…caused you to suffer." She had to push the words out past the pressure in her throat. "My responsibility is to protect you, but I never once suspected she had ill intentions. If I had fulfilled my duty, you would have been spared that pain."

There was nothing else she could say. She stood, head bowed a little.

At last there was a rustle of cloth against cloth, and when Lin lifted her eyes a fraction she could see that Lady Shiori had stood. "I can’t offer forgiveness when--" She was not looking at Lin. "If anyone--" She broke off and closed her uncovered eye, and Lin saw her jaw tighten.

When Lady Shiori opened her eye and she spoke again, her tone was different, more pointed. "At that club, when Shinozaki found us in the hallway," she said, "you let the both of us be captured."

"I did." When Lady Shiori said nothing and continued to pin with a look, Lin went on, "If he…if it came to the point where I knew he would harm you, I would have acted. But my purpose has been--" Her hands twisted in the fabric of her skirt as she sorted through her thoughts. How to explain what she’d held in her heart and head for ten years?

"When you returned and took up the position of Watchdog," she managed, "I thought that--a person who would spend their life in the shadows should always have a weapon that no one would ever expect, not even the person themselves. Because then no one--"

"No one would think to take it away from them," Lady Shiori said.

The silence this time went on so long that Lin could hear the delicate ticking of the desk clock, and the soft sound of the two of them breathing.

"Sebastian," Lady Shiori said at last, "is not the most obvious bodyguard either."

"Yes, my lady," Lin said. "But anyone who sees him can tell that he's--"

"Capable," Lady Shiori finished for her again. Her expression was no longer sharp, but thoughtful.

Abruptly she extended a hand. "Here," she said. "Step through this with me." When Lin came closer Lady Shiori took up her hand and settled her own on Lin's shoulder. "Slow," she said. "As slowly as you possibly can."

This time, with hands and feet in their proper positions, they went through it at a crawl, their movements so gradual that if Mr. Sebastian had been there, Lin knew he'd have smirked openly at how silly they looked. A step, and a step, and another step, and a turn, their feet dipping in and out of bars of shadow and sunlight on the floor.

"You’re stepping a second before should," Lady Shiori said, pausing for a moment. "Wait until you feel that I’m pushing you to move." Her hand tightened on Lin’s shoulder for a moment, as if to hold her in place, and then Lin felt her shift her weight, and she made herself hold, and hold, and then she stepped back--"Mm. Like that," Lady Shiori said.

Lin pushed down the smile that wanted to bloom, and then, greatly daring, said "If I might…?" Lady Shiori dipped her head a fraction, and Lin went on, "You seem very...stiff." She lifted her hand and moved as if to touch Lady Shiori's arm, then paused. Lady Shiori's face stayed motionless, and Lin let her fingers drop into the bend of her elbow and press, gently, until it relaxed a little. She saw the muscles in her shoulders and other arm loosen as well--just a bit, but better than nothing.

They tried another step, and another, and a third, until they had gone around the room--slowly, but without a single trip or misstep, and Lady Shiori almost looked pleased.

"Again," she said, "and a little faster."

After that, it was easier.

* * *

The ballroom of Lady Chizuko’s Western-style mansion stretched long and luxurious across the rear of the house--checkerboard floor of black and white marble, high arching ceiling, and chandeliers of brass with so many arms it must have taken some poor servant an entire day to polish them. Lin would have found it a daunting room to be in if it had been empty; doing so when it was filled with two hundred or so luminaries of society and business was scarcely any better. Everywhere she looked there were people, standing in groups, leaning in to pass comments, sitting at tables off to either side of the room; with every movement warm light scattered across cut-glass crystal and cool metal and gems around necks and wrists.

She kept her arm tucked into Lady Shiori's, her fingertips tightening into the fine cloth of her jacket through the lace of her gloves. At least that was a little familiar.

Lady Shiori must have noticed the pressure of her hand; she gave Lin a sideways glance. "It’s nothing to be afraid of.."

"There’s...a great many people," Lin said. "And I might spoil things."

"You won’t," Lady Shiori said, and without any warning began pulling Lin towards a tall, thin woman in green silk, who was chatting with an older gentlemen; when the woman turned her head Lin realized it was Lady Chizuko.

"Oh--" But it was too late; before she could get the _no_ out Lady Shiori had brought them close enough to speak, and accepting Lady Chizuko's greeting--"my dear Lord Kiyoharu, so wonderful that you were able to attend!"--and then the Lady's eyes settled on Lin.

"Miss Sumire," Lady Shiori said. "A friend of the Genpou family."

Lady Chizuko's eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch as as she extended her hand; Lin took it and forced her gaze to stay up and her smile to stay fixed as those flint-colored eyes looked her over. Lady Chizuko had visited the Genpou mansion several times on this or that social errand, and more than once Lin had been present to attempt to fetch refreshments or carry away trays--but then her mouth slid into a smile, and she said "I am very pleased to meet you, Miss Sumire."

"The pleasure is mine," Lin managed, her voice only wobbling on one word--and Lady Chizuko's smile twitched a little higher, so she'd heard that wobble, but the smile looked like one of indulgence, not mockery, and Lin couldn't catch any hint of familiarity or suspicion in her eyes. The shy daughter of some business family, or sheltered and distant poor relation being treated to her first--and possibly only--elegant party.

Lin kept her face still as Lady Chizuko offered a few more pleasantries, and then nodded and smiled as Lady Shiori drew Lin away, and began to lead her in a slow path around the room. "See," her mistress said, "that's all it is. Just polite nonsense."

Nonsense it might be, but to dismiss it all was bit of an underestimate in Lin's mind. She'd been half-right in thinking a party of this sort would be more subdued than that nightclub, but the low roar of conversation here pressed on her ears just as badly as the club's heavy bass had, and while in that dark space everyone else had been occupied with themselves or each other or whatever drink or drug they'd had swimming in their veins, here people had enough sense that they might actually take notice of her.

But it seemed that everyone who saw them or stopped Lady Shiori for a word or two seemed to take them for exactly what they were supposed to be: the rich young earl in a trim dark evening suit and his shy companion in grey silk. No one gave any indication of sensing that Lin had spent an hour that day scuffing the soles of her dress shoes in case she need to move quickly on the marble, or that her dress’s skirt had been made with enough pouf and swirl to leave her legs free and hide the holsters cinched just above the top of her stockings. Eventually the tension in her chest unknotted a little. Everyone was more interested in speaking with Lord Kiyoharu than in drawing his companion into conversation, and all Lin had to do was look pleasantly boring and say _how do you do_ and _yes, it’s a marvelous party_. She’d still rather have herself and Lady Shiori back home and miles away from here; in a situation like this there was no easy way to keep aware of potential sources of danger. But least with her arm folded into Lady Shiori’s she had something to keep her steady on her feet, and wasn’t at risk of losing her in the crowd.

The combined murmur of a hundred different conversations flowed up around her head; the musicians in the rear of the room looked like they were laboring away mightily, but the music never seemed to stop, as if it was all one song flowing together, speeding up and slowing down in some pattern she could never catch. Then ten minutes into Lady Shiori’s conversation with a flat-voiced businessman the music leapt into a bright run of violin notes, and Lady Shiori said, "Excuse me, I promised Miss Sumire a dance." She stepped away from the man and towards the emptier space in the room’s center, carrying Lin with her.

"I didn't care to talk to him any longer," Lady Shiori said, nudging Lin out of their arm-clasp so they faced each other. "This makes a good enough excuse."

She kept Lin’s hold of Lin's right hand and settled her left onto the familiar spot on Lin’s back.

After the first few sets of steps Lin let her mantra of _don’t trip, don’t trip, pick your feet up properly_ fade out and turned her attention to the delicate weight of Lady Shiori's hand, forcing herself to wait for the pressure that told her to step forward and retreat or turn this way or that. Back and left and together, forward and right and together; her body kept pushing against it, her feet wanting take steps and turns a second early so she could place herself in Lady Shiori's path and cover any avenue of approach with her back or arm or shoulder. The pressure at her back drew her forward and turned her under the arch of Lady Shiori’s arm, and as they came back together she realized they were _dancing_ \--not perfectly or elegantly, but well enough that what they did couldn’t be called anything else.

Lady Shiori wasn't smiling, but her mouth had softened, and there was a faint blush of exertion across her face.

"Not bad," she said, and Lin felt words come straight to her tongue, ready to speak.

"I didn't know--" she said.

Which was, of course, when the lights went out.

* * *

_The first minute of an incident is often the most crucial one,_ her mother had told her, long and long ago. _If you haven't acted by the time that minute's over, it's too late._ So ten seconds after the room went dark Lin murmured "Stay with me," to Lady Shiori and started pulling her along, off the floor, one hand ahead of her to brush aside anyone they might bump into. If this was some party trick, fine; she'd have tugged Lady Shiori off the floor for nothing and would look a little foolish. If this was something else--

There were plenty of potential 'something elses', and for most of them trapped in the center of the room surrounded by a crowd was the worst place to be.

Ahead of her she heard the bright sound of glass shattering, voices rising in alarm, a sharp yelp suddenly cut off. She turned midstep-- _go left? go right?_ _not the main entrance, they'll all be running that way in a second_ \--and pointed herself toward the left side of the room. The crowd head been less thick there, though her outstretched hand still bumped against as she parted clusters of people. It had been a half a minute now, and the crowd was sliding from surprise into confusion.

Her mind remembered well enough where the tables and chairs had been for her to step around them without bumping or catching herself on any of the legs. Her fingers knocked against the door's frame as another crash of glass sounded behind her, and shouts of alarm; she dragged her hand across the wood until she caught the handle, pulled Lady Shiori through, and shut the door behind them.

The hall itself was dark, but the moon was still just low enough in the east to cast a thin bit of light on the row of windows at the end where the hallway turned a corner.

Lady Shiori was close against her back. "What is it?"

"I don't know," Lin said. Those windows were likely to be locked, but they'd be big enough to climb through even if she had to smash the glass--

A flicker of movement at the end of the hallway--she stepped back, pressing Lady Shiori into the dip of an alcove, neatly avoiding the base of a tall potted fern. Figures at the far end of the hallway, barely silhouetted against the darker black of the walls--and focused, moving with too much purpose to be lost guests or panicked servants.

Lady Shiori’s hand squeezed her shoulder, then dropped. "Sebastian is outside," she whispered.

Lin let out a _haaah_ , barely louder than a normal breath, to show that she’d heard. That was good, that meant that once they were outside Lady Shiori’s safety was all but guaranteed, but they needed to _get_ outside first. She caught at the top edges of her gloves, yanked them off and stuffed them in the bodice of her dress. Her hands went to the edge of her skirt; there was a touch at her elbow and she turned back--

\--and felt a hand at her glasses, lifting and tugging them free from her face. The dark shape of Lady Shiori's head moved towards hers.

"Lin," she whispered, her mouth brushing the shell of Lin's ear. "Go as you please."

Lin’s heart thumped once, sharply. She steadied it and whispered back, "Once they're dealt with, go for the window."

She felt Lady Shiori’s nod as she drew back, and let her own hands reach down to her guns; they slid out smooth and ready into her grip. The shadowed forms had already resolved into targets to her mind's eye, their edges crisp and sharp.

 _I am a shield and a weapon,_ she thought, _to be guided by Lady Shiori's hands._

And she stepped out, her feet steady under her, and leapt forward.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Yuletide, Piscaria! I wanted to write something for your Kuroshitsuji request last year but ran out of time, so I was so happy to get assigned to you this year. Since the movie touched on so many of the elements of the first two volumes of the manga EXCEPT for the dancing lesson, I thought it might be fun to try to do a version of that with Shiori and Lin, but as all my fics do it grew legs and ran away with me. I hope you enjoy the results nonetheless!
> 
> I do apologize that I could not get this as unambiguously femslashy as I wanted it to be. I ganked the title from Sappho to try to make up for it.


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